Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-04-17
THE PYRAMIDS.
THESE WONDERS DESCRIBED BIZ A
RIoHM0NDER.
Points That Will DO Of Interest to AL
the "Dispateh's" Readers.

A beloved Richmonder, man OF
distinction, now in Cairo, writing to a
friend here, thus speaks OF the pyra-
| mids:
There are more than hundred pyra-
mids on the Nile, the larger portion, in
deed very nearly all of them, on the
west bank. They are made of all ma
terials from hard granite down to Nile
mud, and OF all sizes from the monster
am going to describe down to minia-
ture affairs thirty or forty feet high !;
nor are they all alike in form. The
great majority are true geometrical
pyramids with sides sloping at a regular
and uniform angle, about 50' or $50
with the horizon. But some are in
stems, and some with sides sloping for
part of their height at one angle, and
Tor the residue at another. All, how
ever, without exception, are tombs, and
nearly, though not quite all, tombs Of
kings.
The first group is opposite Cairo, a
little south OF due-west line from the
city. Formerly the travellerapproached
them on sandy, unshaded road, and
generally on the back of the wonderful
donkeys of Egypt. But the late khe-
dive Ismail, now in exile at Naples, the
father of Mahomet Thewfik, the present
Viceroy, under whose reign the Suez
canal was completed, made the formal
opening of that work in 1870 the occa-
sion of many conspicuous contributions
to the pleasure OF the great assemblage
then convened in Egypt.
The Empress Eugene was the special
subject of his attention, and there is n
curious story current here to the effect
that she brought with her from France
a MAGNIFICENT crown with which he was
to be adorned and hailed "King OF
Egypt" on the occasion, but that the
Sultan of Turkey, hearing of it, put his
foot upon ceremony which seemed to
amount TO challenge of his supremacy
as the suzerain Of the Khedive, and it
was dropped.
Be this as it May, you know that
Verdi wrote his opera of "Aida at the
Khedive's command, to honort the cere-
mony, and it was accordingly first
PLAYED in the Khedive's theatre here.
SHADY ROAD.
Another work, more useful perhaps,
and certainly more used, was hand
some and perfectly level road, five or
six miles long, and shaded throughout
by double row of the famous "Leb-
bek" trees, the finest shade-tree /
know, stretching from the western end
of the iron bridge across the Nile to
the foot of the pyramids.
So now you make your pilgrimage in
carriage, completely protected from
the sun. AS you near the group the
ground begins to rise slightly, and you
observe q stone wall now starts up on
either hand, protecting winding road
that conducts by a smart ascent for
perhaps 500 yards to the top of the
plateau of the pyramids. The wall
was built to protect the road from the
desert for the plateau of Shizeh is
precisely on the line which divides the
luxurious fertility of the Nile from the
sterile wastes of the Libyan desert /;
and the sands here, as everywhere else
in Egypt, and for all the historic
period, have waged an eternal war
fare against the Nile, advancing every
winter their prowling outposts and fall
ing back every summer under the
sorties of the rising flood OF Egypt's
nourishing river.
And now we are on the top OF a rocky
plain, the truncated surface of an $50
lated rock, which was levelled by the
kings of the fourth dynasty-probably
by Khufu, whom we, following the
Greeks, call CheOps-to form the basis
for his stupendous structure.
TWO GREAT PYRAMIDS.
Facing us as we arrive on the summit
of the hill is "the great pyramid, the
largest and highest of them all. Pre-
cisely south of it, and laid off with OBJ
vious relation to it, for the diagonal
from the northeast to the southwest
corner of the great pyramid passes pre-
cisely from the northeast to the south
west corner Of the second, or RhGfrd
pyramid-so named after the king who
built it and was entombed In it. Fur
ther on in the same general direction
southwest is a smaller pyramid-that
Of McnkdUrd-whose diagonal is not q
prolongation Of that of the other two, but
is parallel with it, by which means the
rule is preserved, which seems to have
been, what the French call "sacra-
mentale," that the sides of pyramids
should face precisely the points OF the
compass.
The second of the pyramids looks
highest, but this is because it is on
higher ground. 1t is in fact little
lower than Cheops.
No sooner have you arrived on the
plateau and descended from your car
riage, than an Arab functionary, the
Sheikh pronounced Snake OF the
pyramids, approaches You, and asks ii
you wish to go up. Ii You say yes, he
informs you that he wants ten piastres
fifty cents), and thereupon he assigns
YOU four attendants. There are forty
Bedouins under his charge, WHOM he
divides in groups of four. These help
your ascent, and, without them, TO
most people it would be impossible.
THE ASCENT.
It is not easy to give one an idea OF
the fatigue of the ascent, but perhaps
l can approximate informing You in
this way {: l suppose that it would be
fair to estimate the average height
Of the stories OF New York
apartment-house or "fat" at eleven
feet, taking all the stories; 80
that the height of a ten-story fiat
would be about 10 feet. Now, put
four OF these, one on the top OF the
other, and you have not equalled the
perpendicular attitude Of the great
pyramid. Suppose You had to walk up
from foundation to roof OF this enor-
nous structure by staircase, without
either hsnd-rail or rest or landing
the steps of which. instead Of being OF
regular rise, varied at every stage OF the
ascent instead of being each about 6
or s inches high, varied from 2 feet to
81 feet each, all having their corners
or edges broken off; many SO broken